


lost cause

by direSin



Series: witcher screenshot fics [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 08:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14445066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/direSin/pseuds/direSin
Summary: Triss' take on Geralt/Yennefer (based on w3). Begins at the masquerade.





	lost cause

_Now or never_ , she thinks. She slips herself into his personal space and doesn’t pull back. She knows how to scrunch up her face in a fake-drunken giggle without hiding the pretty lines of her mouth. She can throw herself into his arms with not quite enough force to crush the velvet of her beautiful new gown. She winds her fingers in her hair and says his name like a caress, adding a rueful little laugh. She lets her eyes flutter shut and tilts her head up for a kiss. Seconds slip by and it doesn’t come, and when she opens her eyes she sees the tense line of his jaw and realizes he’s wary of her.

He sets her on her feet and she smiles tightly. She isn’t ready to give up just yet. When she corners him in the stables, later, she can hear the forced note in his voice so she keeps the conversation short. But she slides her hands up his arms and relishes the startlement in his eyes - in the instant before he grasps her wrists and pushes her gently away.

She knows he doesn't tell Yenna because when she arrives at Kaer Morhen she survives the conversation with her. She supposes she owes him for that.

She feels no guilt. She has the right to be happy like everyone else; she’s only ever done what she had to do. She always knew there’d be a price to pay and she paid it - with Yenna’s name etched into every line of her own love story, ever-present in the silences, blatant under every moan and gasp.

The effort it takes Yenna to act oblivious is likely equal to the effort it takes her to act like she isn’t jealous. She grits her teeth and rides it out, refusing to be the one to escalate the whole mess. If Yenna won’t drop the act she won’t either, so mostly they ignore each other until they have the energy to speak with their faces carefully blank and their hands not clenched into fists. Some things can’t be salvaged but they can be avoided.

Until they can’t.

When she sees them kiss there’s a jerk in her gut. She’s been expecting it, to be fair, but she’s been expecting something different. A grand show for her benefit, on Yenna’s part. Some awkwardness, from Geralt. Lots of dramatic tension that’s always crackled between the two of them, driving them apart over and over. Instead their eyes are closed, her hands framing his face and his resting on the small of her back, and it doesn’t look exciting or dangerous or intense, or any of the other things she imagined. It just looks _real_.

She tries not to think the word _love_ but somehow it leaks in anyway and suddenly she’s falling to pieces, with a punch-to-the-gut sense of loss. She hiccups, hating the ugly raw sobs piling up in the back of her throat and the way her nose begins to run. Scrubbing at her eyes she hardly notices a hand on her shoulder, Eskel’s voice murmuring to her in a gentle monotone. She wonders if everyone else has seen too much, if she should have recognized pity in the sidelong glances thrown her way.

She decides, in the end, that it doesn’t matter and lets herself be pulled against the warmth of his chest. _Eskel is a good, kind man_ , she thinks, _whom I like well enough to make it work_. The pragmatism of it feels a little sickening but she’s tired of the games where she’s always on the losing side. She’s playing it safe from now on. When he takes her hand she doesn’t pull away; she clutches his fingers tighter, tangling them together with her own.


End file.
